corporate governance unilever case study

Unilever Company’s Leadership and Corporate Governance Case Study

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How does Unilever display its commitment to leadership?

Unilever was established in 1930 after an amalgamation of companies that existed before the 20th century. In the early years of its establishment, the company went through tough economic conditions courtesy of World War II and the Great Depression (“Case study 4: Unilever” n.pag). Further, the persistence of inflation in the 1970s forced Unilever to abandon more than two-thirds of its brands by selling them to rival firms or pulling out. In the end, Unilever managed to come out of that predicament. Currently, it is one of the world’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies (Market Line 3). The company operates in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. Its headquarters is in London, United Kingdom. As of December 2014, the company has 172,472 employees.

The success of Unilever associated with the company’s commitment to leadership. Mainly, it displays its commitment to leadership through the corporate government, embracing organizational change and incorporating local cultures within the internationally accepted corporate framework. The leadership commitment of Unilever is founded on its corporate governance (“Case study 4: Unilever” n.pag). Notably, its Code of Business Principles mandates the company and its subsidiaries to conduct business operations within the internationally accepted principles of best practices.

As such, the Code of Business Principles enables the company to comply with the best practices such as obeying the law, embracing vigorous competition, pursuing business integrity, promoting diversity, providing quality products and services to customers (Unilever Code of Business 2). Corporate governance constitutes the norm of the company. Remarkably, irrespective of the leader in charge, leadership commitment is always evident in Unilever. For instance, Patrick Cescau, a former chief executive, initiated the “One Unilever” model of corporate governance (“Case study 4: Unilever” n.pag). This approach pursued the expansion and decentralization of the company operations regarding leadership and management.

Unilever, as a multinational company responds to diverse international environments. Through commitment leadership, Unilever manages to express diverse and sensitive responses based on cultural issues in question. According to Van Beek and Grachev, the response of Unilever’s leadership to cultural issues in its subsidiaries is based on strategic disposition (from ethnocentric to geocentric level) and strategic configuration (from multi-domestic to global level). The cultural sensitivities influence Unilever’s ability to prevail over cultural frictions. Besides, the response enables the company to transfer competencies and ethical behaviors past national borders.

Further, Unilever demonstrates its commitment to leadership through organizational culture and practices. According to Paul Polman, the current Unilever CEO, every individual in the company is a leader, so long as he/she influences someone else positively (“Case study 4: Unilever” n.pag). As such, Polman’s argument demonstrates that Unilever considers leadership as one of its core competencies. Notably, this consideration has a strong influence on leadership development and leadership behaviors in the company’s international operations. According to Van Beek and Grachev, the concept of leadership relates not only to traditional dimensions such as styles and traits but also with the development of the level of leadership competencies generated via processes of organizational learning as well as the competitive advantage (320). The efficacy of leadership is determined by the interplay between its proficiency and strategic organizational contingency on one hand, and its approach and behaviors on the other. In enhancing its efficacy, Unilever’s leadership relies on attitudes and behaviors which are congruent with the considered managerial contingencies.

How has this commitment to leadership allowed it to capitalize on opportunities in the marketplace?

The commitment to leadership enables Unilever to capitalize on the marketplace in numerous ways. First, the strategic leadership of Unilever is tied to the company’s long-term goals and objectives. Unilever’s 2009 annual report demonstrates this interplay by reiterating the strong base of company principles and values that Unilever embraces such as trust, integrity, investments to people, and doing what is best for the business in the long term (“Case study 4: Unilever” n.pag). Specifically, the company operates in a competitive market, and in this regard, its leadership is committed to customers through enhanced accountability, responsibility, and quick action. The company enhances its relationship with consumers by simplifying its target setting and sharpening the performance of its employees.

Leadership Growth Profile (LGP) acts as a link between Unilever’s leadership efficacy and the corporate strategy (Path to Growth). This leadership concept was established in the early 2000s (Van Beek and Grachev 321). As an inclusive strategy, the “Path to Growth” entails business operations such as customer development, the supply chain, and brand marketing. Mainly, “Path to Growth” pursues effective enterprise culture by encouraging employees to demonstrate winning behaviors at the marketplace through attitude, motivation, and passion (Rao 268). Using the “Path to Growth” principle, Unilever has managed to amalgamate the main business activities for growth at the global markets with behaviors that result in growth in the long term (Van Beek and Grachev 321). The use of leadership competence has continued to act as the main tool for making Unilever emerge as a winner in markets characterized by strong competition.

Unilever uses LGP as a model of leadership commitment to manage and to control its human resource. Specifically, “Leadership Growth Profile” entails the establishment and implementation of growth vision where the behaviors of employees constitute the foundation of Unilever’s growth (Van Beek and Grachev 321). Besides, this concept enables the management to energize other employers, and at the same time secure their commitment for the sake of the company’s growth. Over the years, Unilever has relied on LGP efficacies in administration development, employment, and performance appraisals to transform and enhance the attitudes and behaviors of managers relating to the attainment of strategic growth. Specifically, LGP competencies have enabled Unilever to pursue opportunities relating to marketplaces across the globe.

Unilever’s commitment to leadership has relied on “Corporate Purpose Statement” to describe its aspirations in the marketplace, as well as the values and beliefs. Using this concept of leadership, Unilever has managed to focus on the local culture of its subsidiaries within a global framework (Van Beek and Grachev 322). The “Corporate Purpose Statement” enables Unilever’s foreign subsidiaries to harness their resources at the local level by aligning them within the local relevance and acceptable global framework. In particular, the company combines its multinational expertise with its deep roots in varied local cultures to provide a wide range of products that suit the needs and preferences of customers (Unilever Our Vision par. 3).

“Leaders into Action” concept enables Unilever to take advantage of opportunities presented in the marketplace. The concept aligns with Unilever’s competencies model with relevant managerial behaviors. Considerably, Unilever relies on the “Leaders into Action” concept to measure cultural change. According to Van Beek and Grachev, the measurement of cultural change in Unilever yields positive and tangible results relative to improvements in LGP (322). Notably, the results demonstrate that Unilever managers can view business activities from diverse angles.

Unilever’s LGP promotes empowerment, delegation, accountability, courageous and persistent, opened, trust, and collaboration, and better coaching. Again, LGP based strategic leadership of Unilever combines numerous aspects such as delivering sustainable value in large categories, working within consumer pyramids, building core competencies such as competitive advantage and trading the market ups (Van Beek and Grachev 322). These attributes have empowered Unilever to continue developing managers as the next generation of leaders across the world. In short, the success of Unilever in international markets is due to the company’s commitment to leadership.

Works Cited

Case study 4: Unilever: Leadership Knows No Boundaries . n.d., n.pag. Print.

Market Line. “Unilever: Company Profile.” A Progressive Digital Media Business , 2015, 1-10. Print.

Rao, Madanmohan. Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques: Practitioners and Experts Evaluate KM Solutions . Ed. Burlington, MA: Routledge, 2005. Print.

Unilever. Code of Business Principles: The Unilever Group of Companies , 2015, 1-2. Print.

—. Our Vision , 2015. Web.

Van Beek, Maarten, and Mikhail Grachev. “Building Strategic Leadership Competencies: The Case of Unilever.” International Journal of Leadership Studies 5.3 (2010): 317-332. Print.

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Gabriela Salinas and Jeeva Somasundaram

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

In April this year, Hein Schumacher, chief executive of Unilever, announced that the company was entering a “new era for sustainability leadership”, and signalled a shift from the central priority promoted under his predecessor , Alan Jope.

While Jope saw lack of social purpose or environmental sustainability as the way to prune brands from the portfolio, Schumacher has adopted a more balanced approach between purpose and profit. He stresses that Unilever should deliver on both sustainability commitments and financial goals. This approach, which we dub “realistic sustainability”, aims to balance long- and short-term environmental goals, ambition, and delivery.

As a result, Unilever’s refreshed sustainability agenda focuses harder on fewer commitments that the company says remain “very stretching”. In practice, this entails extending deadlines for taking action as well as reducing the scale of its targets for environmental, social and governance measures.

Such backpedalling is becoming widespread — with many companies retracting their commitments to climate targets , for example. According to FactSet, a US financial data and software provider, the number of US companies in the S&P 500 index mentioning “ESG” on their earnings calls has declined sharply : from a peak of 155 in the fourth quarter 2021 to just 29 two years later. This trend towards playing down a company’s ESG efforts, from fear of greater scrutiny or of accusations of empty claims, even has a name: “greenhushing”.

Test yourself

This is the fourth in a series of monthly business school-style teaching case studies devoted to the responsible business dilemmas faced by organisations. Read the piece and FT articles suggested at the end before considering the questions raised.

About the authors: Gabriela Salinas is an adjunct professor of marketing at IE University; Jeeva Somasundaram is an assistant professor of decision sciences in operations and technology at IE University.

The series forms part of a wider collection of FT ‘instant teaching case studies ’, featured across our Business Education publications, that explore management challenges.

The change in approach is not limited to regulatory compliance and corporate reporting; it also affects consumer communications. While Jope believed that brands sold more when “guided by a purpose”, Schumacher argues that “we don’t want to force fit [purpose] on brands unnecessarily”.

His more nuanced view aligns with evidence that consumers’ responses to the sustainability and purpose communication attached to brand names depend on two key variables: the type of industry in which the brand operates; and the specific aspect of sustainability being communicated.

In terms of the sustainability message, research in the Journal of Business Ethics found consumers can be less interested when product functionality is key. Furthermore, a UK survey in 2022 found that about 15 per cent of consumers believed brands should support social causes, but nearly 60 per cent said they would rather see brand owners pay taxes and treat people fairly.

Among investors, too, “anti-purpose” and “anti-ESG” sentiment is growing. One (unnamed) leading bond fund manager even suggested to the FT that “ESG will be dead in five years”.

Media reports on the adverse impact of ESG controversies on investment are certainly now more frequent. For example, while Jope was still at the helm, the FT reported criticism of Unilever by influential fund manager Terry Smith for displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of managing the business.

Yet some executives feel under pressure to take a stand on environmental and social issues — in many cases believing they are morally obliged to do so or through a desire to improve their own reputations. This pressure may lead to a conflict with shareholders if sustainability becomes a promotional tool for managers, or for their personal social responsibility agenda, rather than creating business value .

Such opportunistic behaviours may lead to a perception that corporate sustainability policies are pursued only because of public image concerns.

Alison Taylor, at NYU Stern School of Business, recently described Unilever’s old materiality map — a visual representation of how companies assess which social and environmental factors matter most to them — to Sustainability magazine. She depicted it as an example of “baggy, vague, overambitious goals and self-aggrandising commitments that make little sense and falsely suggest a mayonnaise and soap company can solve intractable societal problems”.

In contrast, the “realism” approach of Schumacher is being promulgated as both more honest and more feasible. Former investment banker Alex Edmans, at London Business School, has coined the term “rational sustainability” to describe an approach that integrates financial principles into decision-making, and avoids using sustainability primarily for enhancing social image and reputation.

Such “rational sustainability” encompasses any business activity that creates long-term value — including product innovation, productivity enhancements, or corporate culture initiatives, regardless of whether they fall under the traditional ESG framework.

Similarly, Schumacher’s approach aims for fewer targets with greater impact, all while keeping financial objectives in sight.

Complex objectives, such as having a positive impact on the world, may be best achieved indirectly, as expounded by economist John Kay in his book, Obliquity . Schumacher’s “realistic sustainability” approach means focusing on long-term value creation, placing customers and investors to the fore. Saving the planet begins with meaningfully helping a company’s consumers and investors. Without their support, broader sustainability efforts risk failure.

Questions for discussion

Read: Unilever has ‘lost the plot’ by fixating on sustainability, says Terry Smith

Companies take step back from making climate target promises

The real impact of the ESG backlash

Unilever’s new chief says corporate purpose can be ‘unwelcome distraction ’

Unilever says new laxer environmental targets aim for ‘realism’

How should business executives incorporate ESG criteria in their commercial, investor, internal, and external communications? How can they strike a balance between purpose and profits?

How does purpose affect business and brand value? Under what circumstances or conditions can the impact of purpose be positive, neutral, or negative?

Are brands vehicles by which to drive social or environmental change? Is this the primary role of brands in the 21st century or do profits and clients’ needs come first?

Which categories or sectors might benefit most from strongly articulating and communicating a corporate purpose? Are there instances in which it might backfire?

In your opinion, is it necessary for brands to take a stance on social issues? Why or why not, and when?

Climate Capital

Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here .

Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here

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Unilever—A Case Study

This article considers key issues relating to the organization and performance of large multinational firms in the post-Second World War period. Although foreign direct investment is defined by ownership and control, in practice the nature of that "control" is far from straightforward. The issue of control is examined, as is the related question of the "stickiness" of knowledge within large international firms. The discussion draws on a case study of the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods manufacturer Unilever, which has been one of the largest direct investors in the United States in the twentieth century. After 1945 Unilever's once successful business in the United States began to decline, yet the parent company maintained an arms-length relationship with its U.S. affiliates, refusing to intervene in their management. Although Unilever "owned" large U.S. businesses, the question of whether it "controlled" them was more debatable.

Some of the central issues related to the organization and performance of multinationals after the Second World War can be illustrated by studying the case of Unilever in the United States. Since Unilever's creation in 1929 by a merger of British and Dutch soap and margarine companies, 1 it has ranked as one of Europe's, and the world's, largest consumer-goods companies. Its sales of $45,679 million in 2000 ranked it fifty-fourth by revenues in the Fortune 500 list of largest companies for that year.

A Complex Organization

Unilever was an organizational curiosity in that, since 1929, it has been headed by two separate British and Dutch companies—Unilever Ltd. (PLC after 1981), and Unilever N.V.—with different sets of shareholders but identical boards of directors. An "Equalization Agreement" provided that the two companies should at all times pay dividends of equivalent value in sterling and guilders. There were two head offices—in London and Rotterdam—and two chairmen. Until 1996 the "chief executive" role was performed by a three-person Special Committee consisting of the two chairmen and one other director.

Beneath the two parent companies a large number of operating companies were active in individual countries. They had many names, often reflecting predecessor firms or companies that had been acquired. Among them were Lever; Van den Bergh & Jurgens; Gibbs; Batchelors; Langnese; and Sunlicht. The name "Unilever" was not used in operating companies or in brand names. Lever Brothers and T. J. Lipton were the two postwar U.S. affiliates. These national operating companies were allocated to either Ltd./PLC or N.V. for historical or other reasons. Lever Brothers was transferred to N.V. in 1937, and until 1987 (when PLC was given a 25 percent shareholding) Unilever's business in the United States was wholly owned by N.V. Unilever's business, and, as a result, counted as part of Dutch foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. Unilever and its Anglo-Dutch twin Royal Dutch Shell formed major elements in the historically large Dutch FDI in the United States. 2 However, the fact that all dividends were remitted to N.V. in the Netherlands did not mean that the head office in Rotterdam exclusively managed the U.S. affiliates. The Special Committee had both Dutch and British members, and directors and functional departments were based in both countries and had managerial responsibilities without regard for the formality of N.V. or Ltd./PLC ownership. Thus, while ownership lay in the Netherlands, managerial control was Anglo-Dutch.

The organizational complexity was compounded by Unilever's wide portfolio of products and by the changes in these products over time. Edible fats, such as margarine, and soap and detergents were the historical origins of Unilever's business, but decades of diversification resulted in other activities. By the 1950s, Unilever manufactured convenience foods, such as frozen foods and soup, ice cream, meat products, and tea and other drinks. It manufactured personal care products, including toothpaste, shampoo, hairsprays, and deodorants. The oils and fats business also led Unilever into specialty chemicals and animal feeds. In Europe, its food business spanned all stages of the industry, from fishing fleets to retail shops. Among its range of ancillary services were shipping, paper, packaging, plastics, and advertising and market research. Unilever also owned a trading company, called the United Africa Company, which began by importing and exporting into West Africa but, beginning in the 1950s, turned to investing heavily in local manufacturing, especially brewing and textiles. The United Africa Company employed around 70,000 people in the 1970s and was the largest modern business enterprise in West Africa. 3 Unilever's total employment was over 350,000 in the mid-1970s, or around seven times larger than that of Procter & Gamble (hereafter P&G), its main rival in the U.S. detergent and toothpaste markets.

A World-wide Investor

An early multinational investor, by the postwar decades Unilever possessed extensive manufacturing and trading businesses throughout Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Unilever was one of the oldest and largest foreign multinationals in the United States. William Lever, founder of the British predecessor of Unilever, first visited the United States in 1888 and by the turn of the century had three manufacturing plants in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. 4 The subsequent growth of the business, which was by no means linear, will be reviewed below, but it was always one of the largest foreign investors in the United States. In 1981, a ranking by sales revenues in Forbes put it in twelfth place. 5

Unilever's longevity as an inward investor provides an opportunity to explore in depth a puzzle about inward FDI in the United States. For a number of reasons, including its size, resources, free-market economy, and proclivity toward trade protectionism, the United States has always been a major host economy for foreign firms. It has certainly been the world's largest host since the 1970s, and probably was before 1914 also. 6 Given that most theories of the multinational enterprise suggest that foreign firms possess an "advantage" when they invest in a foreign market, it might be expected that they would earn higher returns than their domestic competitors. 7 This seems to be the general case, but perhaps not for the United States. Considerable anecdotal evidence exists that many foreign firms have experienced significant and sustained problems in the United States, though it is also possible to counter such reports with case studies of sustained success. 8

During the 1990s a series of aggregate studies using tax and other data pointed toward foreign firms earning lower financial returns than their domestic equivalents in the United States. 9 One explanation for this phenomenon might be transfer pricing, but this has proved hard to verify empirically. The industry mix is another possibility, but recent studies have suggested this is not a major factor. More significant influences appear to be market share position—in general, as a foreign owned firm's market share rose, the gap between its return on assets and those for United States—owned companies decreased—and age of the affiliate, with the return on assets of foreign firms rising with their degree of newness. 10 Related to the age effect, there is also the strong, but difficult to quantify, possibility that foreign firms experienced management problems because of idiosyncratic features of the U.S. economy, including not only its size but also the regulatory system and "business culture." The case of Unilever is instructive in investigating these matters, including the issue of whether managing in the United States was particularly hard, even for a company with experience in managing large-scale businesses in some of the world's more challenging political, economic, and financial locations, like Brazil, India, Nigeria, and Turkey.

The story of Unilever in the United States provides rich new empirical evidence on critical issues relating to the functioning of multinationals and their impact. — Geoffrey Jones

Finally, the story of Unilever in the United States provides rich new empirical evidence on critical issues relating to the functioning of multinationals and their impact. It raises the issue of what is meant by "control" within multinationals. Management and control are at the heart of definitions of multinationals and foreign direct investment (as opposed to portfolio investment), yet these are by no means straightforward concepts. A great deal of the theory of multinationals relates to the benefits—or otherwise—of controlling transactions within a firm rather than using market arrangements. In turn, transaction-cost theory postulates that intangibles like knowledge and information can often be transferred more efficiently and effectively within a firm than between independent firms. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that much knowledge is tacit. Indeed, it is well established that sharing technology and communicating knowledge within a firm are neither easy nor costless, though there have not been many empirical studies of such intrafirm transfers. 11 Orjan Sövell and Udo Zander have recently gone so far as to claim that multinationals are "not particularly well equipped to continuously transfer technological knowledge across national borders" and that their "contribution to the international diffusion of knowledge transfers has been overestimated. 12 This study of Unilever in the United States provides compelling new evidence on this issue.

Lever Brothers In The United States: Building And Losing Competitive Advantage

Lever Brothers, Unilever's first and major affiliate, was remarkably successful in interwar America. After a slow start, especially because of "the obstinate refusal of the American housewife to appreciate Sunlight Soap," Lever's main soap brand in the United Kingdom, the Lever Brothers business in the United States began to grow rapidly under a new president, Francis A. Countway, an American appointed in 1912. 13 Sales rose from $843,466 in 1913, to $12.5 million in 1920, to $18.9 million in 1925. Lever was the first to alert American consumers to the menace of "BO," "Undie Odor," and "Dishpan Hands," and to market the cures in the form of Lifebuoy and Lux Flakes. By the end of the 1930s sales exceeded $90 million, and in 1946 they reached $150 million.

By the interwar years soap had a firmly oligopolistic market structure in the United States. It formed part of the consumer chemicals industry, which sold branded and packaged goods supported by heavy advertising expenditure. In soap, there were also substantial throughput economies, which encouraged concentration. P&G was, to apply Alfred D. Chandler's terminology, "the first mover"; among the main followers were Colgate and Palmolive-Peet, which merged in 1928. Neither P&G nor Colgate Palmolive diversified greatly beyond soap, though P&G's research took it into cooking oils before 1914 and into shampoos in the 1930s. Lever made up the third member of the oligopoly. The three firms together controlled about 80 percent of the U.S. soap market in the 1930s. 14 By the interwar years, this oligopolistic rivalry was extended overseas. Colgate was an active foreign investor, while in 1930 P&G—previously confined to the United States and Canada—acquired a British soap business, which it proceeded to expand, seriously eroding Unilever's market share. 15

The soap and related markets in the United States had a number of characteristics. Although P&G had established a preponderant market share, shares were strongly contested. Entry, other than by acquisition, was already not really an option by the interwar years, so competition took the form of fierce rivalry between incumbent firms with a long experience of one another. During the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, Lever made substantial progress against P&G. Lever's sales in the United States as a percentage of P&G's sales rose from 14.8 percent between 1924 and 1926 to reach almost 50 percent in 1933. In 1930 P&G suggested purchasing Lever in the United States as part of a world division of markets, but the offer was declined. 16 Lever's success peaked in the early 1930s. Using published figures, Lever estimated its profit as a percentage of capital employed at 26 percent between 1930 and 1932, compared with P&G's 12 percent.

Countway's greatest contribution was in marketing. During the war, Countway put Lever's resources behind Lux soapflakes, promoted as a fine soap that would not damage delicate fabrics just at a time when women's wear was shifting from cotton and lisle to silk and fine fabrics. The campaign featured a variety of tactics, including washing demonstrations at department stores. In 1919 Countway launched Rinso soap powder, coinciding with the advent of the washing machine. In the same year, Lever's agreement with a New York agent to sell its soap everywhere beyond New England was abandoned and a new sales organization was established. Finally, in the mid-1920s, Countway launched, against the advice of the British parent company, a white soap, called "Lux Toilet Soap." J. Walter Thompson was hired to develop a marketing and advertising campaign stressing the glamour of the new product, with very successful results. 17 Lever's share of the U.S. soap market rose from around 2 percent in the early 1920s to 8.5 percent in 1932. 18 Brands were built up by spending heavily on advertising. As a percentage of sales, advertising averaged 25 percent between 1921 and 1933, thereby funding a series of noteworthy campaigns conceived by J. Walter Thompson. This rate of spending was made possible by the low price of oils and fats in the decade and by plowing back profits rather than remitting great dividends. By 1929 Unilever had received $12.2 million from its U.S. business since the time of its start, but thereafter the company reaped benefits, for between 1930 and 1950 cumulative dividends were $50 million. 19

Many foreign firms have experienced significant and sustained problems in the United States. — Geoffrey Jones

After 1933 Lever encountered tougher competition in soap from P&G, though Lever's share of the total U.S. soap market grew to 11 percent in 1938. P&G launched a line of synthetic detergents, including Dreft, in 1933, and came out with Drene, a liquid shampoo, in 1934 both were more effective than solid soap in areas of hard water. However, such products had "teething problems," and their impact on the U.S. market was limited until the war. Countway challenged P&G in another area by entering branded shortening in 1936 with Spry. This also was launched with a massive marketing campaign to attack P&G's Crisco shortening, which had been on sale since 1912. 20 The attack began with a nationwide giveaway of one-pound cans, and the result was "impressive." 21 By 1939 Spry's sales had reached 75 percent of Crisco's, but the resulting price war meant that Lever made no profit on the product until 1941. Lever's sales in general reached as high as 43 percent of P&G's during the early 1940s, and the company further diversified with the purchase of the toothpaste company Pepsodent in 1944. Expansion into margarine followed with the purchase of a Chicago firm in 1948.

The postwar years proved very disappointing for Lever Brothers, for a number of partly related reasons. Countway, on his retirement in 1946, was replaced by the president of Pepsodent, the thirty-four-year-old Charles Luckman, who was credited with the "discovery" of Bob Hope in 1937 when the comedian was used for an advertisement. Countway was a classic "one man band," whose skills in marketing were not matched by much interest in organization building. He never gave much thought to succession, but he liked Luckman. 22 This proved a misjudgment. With his appointment by President Truman to head a food program in Europe at the same time, Luckman became preoccupied with matters outside Lever for a significant portion of his term, though perhaps not to a sufficient degree. Convinced that Lever's management was too old and inbred, he dismissed about 15 percent of the work force soon after taking office, and he completed the transformation by moving the head office from Boston to New York, taking only around one-tenth of the existing executives with him. 23 The head office, constructed in Cambridge by Lever in 1938, was subsequently acquired by MIT and became the Sloan Building.

Luckman's move, which was supported by a firm of management consultants, the Fry Organization of Business Management Experts, was justified on the grounds that the building in Cambridge was not large enough, that it would be easier to find the right personnel in New York, and that Lever would benefit by being closer to the large advertising agencies in the city. 24 There were also rumors that Luckman, who was Jewish, was uncomfortable with what he perceived as widespread anti-Semitism in Boston at that time. The cost of building the New York Park Avenue headquarters, which became established as a "classic" of the new postwar skyscraper, rose steadily from $3.5 million to $6 million. Luckman had trained as an architect at the University of Illinois, and he was very involved in the design of the pioneering New York office.

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In today's globalised world, corporations need to access global pools of capital and to attract and retain the best human capital from various parts of the world. Under such a scenario, unless a corporation embraces and demonstrates ethical conduct, it will not be able to succeed. Ever since India's biggest-ever corporate fraud and governance failure unearthed at Satyam Computer Services Limited, the concerns about good Corporate Governance have increased phenomenally. The rapidly increasing economic growth that corporate India witnessed the high profile governance failure scams since the 1990s brought to the forefront the need for Indian companies to adopt corporate governance practices and standards, which are consistent with international principles and standards. A number of studies in India and abroad have indicated that markets and investors take notice of well managed companies and respond positively to them. The Corporate Governance issue has emerged primarily because of the growing importance of corporations in the national economies and their interaction with the international agencies and institutions. This form of management is also designed to limit risk and eliminate corrosive elements within an organization with haste. Hence, it imperative for a corporation to be fair and transparent to all its stakeholders in all its transactions by adhering to the best corporate governance practices.

Alan Gutterman

While corporate governance has attracted a great deal of attention among the developed countries of the world it has clearly become a global issue to be addressed in some fashion by all countries regardless of their stage of economic development. Given that, it is appropriate to note the definition of corporate governance that was used by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) in its 2004 Principles of Corporate Governance:

Gitika Nagrath

There has been growing international focus on corporate governance particularly in the wake of worldwide financial turbulence and scams. Corporate governance is about maximizing shareholder value legally, ethically and on a sustainable basis. It is about promoting corporate fairness, transparency and accountability. For this purpose efficient, high quality system of corporate governance becomes critical. Given in this context over the past few years a number of regulations and recommendations have been drawn up both at global level as well as in many individual countries on the required level of corporate governance. India has had a well-established regulatory framework for more than four decades, which forms the foundation of the corporate governance system in India. In Indian context year 2000 and onwards seek major changes with formulation of different committees by SEBI. SEBI, vide its circular dated February 21, 2000, specified principles of corporate governance and introduced a new clause 49 in the listing agreement of the stock exchanges. The revised clause 49 as it stands today is applicable to all the listed companies in India. The SEBI, in designing corporate governance norms, has made considerable effort to take the best practices in leading equity markets. Additionally, numerous initiatives have been taken by SEBI to enhance corporate governance practices, viz., streamlining of the disclosure, investor protection guidelines, book building, entry norms, listing agreement, preferential allotment disclosures and lot more. Objectives of the Study In the present study an attempt has been made to examine the Corporate governance practices in 50 Nifty companies. The objective of the study is as follows:  To analyze the corporate governance practices followed by 50 NIFTY companies with regard to  Board of Directors and its composition  Audit Committee and its composition  Shareholders' Grievance Committee and handling of investor complaints In this study an attempt has been made to find the corporate governance practices followed by 50 NIFTY index companies as on March 2011 with regard to board composition, audit committee, shareholders'

Corporate Governance: An International Review

Innovative Academic Reserach

Qais Almohamadi

Corporate Law and Governance Review

Khaled Otman

This paper focused on the concept of corporate governance based on shareholders’ and stakeholders’ perspectives and the development of corporate governance around the world, including the UK, the US, and Australia. The OECD Principles of Corporate Governance were presented, including shareholders’ rights, the equitable treatment of shareholders, disclosure and stakeholders’ rights and transparency practices, and the responsibilities of board of directors. Numerous corporate collapses have highlighted the call for the management and directors of companies to be more accountable, and they have led governments and international organisations such as the OECD to be more active in establishing principles of corporate governance. It was concluded that the system of corporate governance has increased in different countries in relation to the nature of the economy, legal systems, and cultural norms

Corporate Ownership and Control

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The recent issue of the Corporate Ownership and Control journal (volume 19, issue 1) covers the following key themes: accounting standards, corporate governance and social responsibility, public sector governance, financial management and firm performance. The authors represent a range of developed and developing countries, making this issue of the journal truly international.

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Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individuals and company goals. The corporate governance frame work is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and accountability for the stewardship of these resources. Its aim is to align as nearly as possible to the interest of individuals, corporations and society. A bibliography of unclassified literature of the research work on corporate governance of recent times is presented.

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Corporate Governance deals with the principles such as to satisfy the power of law and maintain high degree of disclosures. Corporate governance essentially involves balancing the interests of the many stakeholders in a company. Corporate governance became a pressing issue following the 2002 introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the U.S., which was ushered in order to restore public confidence in companies and markets after accounting fraud bankrupted high-profile companies such as Enron and WorldCom. The purpose of this research paper is to study the importance of corporate governance in the new era of modernisation. In recent times, the companies moving towards the international business for expand their business at world level. So there is need of corporate governance which helps a lot to the companies for building their good image in the eyes of world. Keywords: Corporate Governance; Company; Market

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Unilever Indonesia Change location

Corporate governance

The Company has a comprehensive corporate governance framework that defines the relationship between the Company and its shareholders and other stakeholders, and the relationship between the General Meeting of Shareholders, the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Directors.

The framework consists of systems and policies that cover the management of assets and risks to support the Company’s financial condition and the achievement of our growth objectives; our compliance with statutory provisions; the development of our human resources; our safety and environmental management practices; and our corporate culture.

The GCG framework is reinforced by various guidelines and controls, including the internal control system, the risk management system, the internal audit, the Code of Business Principles, the Articles of Association, the Unilever Business Partner Code, the Sustainable Agriculture Code and our quality management systems, as well as our business processes and standard operating procedures. Together, these ensure that good corporate governance is applied effectively and consistently throughout the organisation.

In Indonesia, Unilever operates through 4 Companies. They are PT. Unilever Indonesia , Tbk, PT. Unilever Enterprise Indonesia, PT. Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia, dan PT. Unilever Trading Indonesia.

Policies on Corporate Governance

Risk Management

Board of Commissioners

Board of Directors

Other Committees

Corporate Secretary

Internal Audit Unit

Code of Business Principles

Independency Statement

Article of Association

Capital Market Supporting Institutions and Professional

Ownership Structure

Organizational Structure

Impact of Ineffective Corporate Governance on Competition and Success: A Case Study on Unilever UK

Added on   2023-06-14

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Unilever Global Change location

Business integrity

We expect everyone at Unilever to be an ambassador for our high ethical standards – what we call ‘business integrity’.

We want to create an environment where employees not only live our values in their own work – integrity, respect, responsibility and pioneering – but are vigilant in identifying potential concerns, and confident about speaking up in such situations.

Our ambitions do not stop there. We aim to have a positive influence across our value chain, working with suppliers, distributors and all third parties to raise the bar on issues such as human rights, anti-bribery and corruption.

Unilever’s Business Integrity programme brings our values to life for all employees, and helps them apply our ethical standards in their day-to-day work. In addition to our Code of Business Principles, it includes clear policies, guidelines and related learning materials, as well as robust procedures and controls to help us prevent, detect and respond to any inappropriate behaviour.

Our focus on business integrity makes Unilever stronger. It helps us to attract, retain and engage the best employees, and to select the right suppliers and business partners. It protects our people, our assets, our reputation and our relationships with stakeholders. It supports the conditions to work collaboratively, both internally and with our partners. And ultimately it helps us grow sustainably and deliver on our Unilever strategy.

Setting out our standards of behaviour

Our Business Integrity framework ensures that how we do business is fully aligned with our values and applicable laws and regulations in countries where we operate. It has three pillars:

• Prevention – we seek to embed a culture of integrity at all levels, in all geographies
• Detection – we encourage employees to speak up and give voice to their values
• Response – we have the tools to investigate and, if necessary, sanction confirmed breaches, and use what we learn to continually improve.

Unilever Code of Business Principles and Code Policies (PDF 5.39 MB)

Our Code of Business Principles (launched in 1995) and 24 related Code Policies are at the heart of our Business Integrity framework. They help us put our values of integrity, respect, responsibility and pioneering into practice. They play a key role in setting out how we seek to ensure compliance with laws and regulations, protect our brands and reputation, and prevent harm to people or the environment.

The Code and Code Policies provide a framework of simple ‘Musts’ and ‘Must Nots’ designed to be readily applied by employees in their day-to-day work. These are available in numerous languages. They are mandatory for all employees and others working for Unilever, including our Board of Directors, and apply to all Unilever companies, subsidiaries and organisations over which Unilever has management control.

Code of Business Principles

The Code of Business Principles (PDF 135.19 KB) is a simple ethical statement of how we should operate. We publish this externally and expect all others who work with us to set themselves equally high principles.

Our non-negotiable high standards for doing business with integrity protect our people, assets, reputation, the communities in which we operate, our consumers, customers, and partners. Knowing the code and doing the right thing makes our company stronger. Hein Schumacher, Unilever CEO

Code Policies

Our Code Policies (PDF 5.39 MB) (see page 8 onwards) define the ethical behaviours that we all need to demonstrate when working for Unilever. They are mandatory. While these are for internal use, we also publish them externally in support of transparency. Find out more about these Policies below.

Having a strong set of values that respect people, society and the planet has always been at the heart of Unilever, and will continue to be critical to building our purpose-led, future-fit company.

Policy downloads

• Legal Consultation (PDF 167.84 KB)
• Living the Code (PDF 139.75 KB)
• Product Safety & Product Quality (PDF 122.69 KB)
• Responsible Innovation (PDF 97.47 KB)
• Responsible Risk Management (PDF 111.06 KB)

Countering corruption

Unilever has a global zero tolerance approach to all forms of corruption. Integrity defines how we behave, wherever we are. It guides us to do the right thing for the long-term success of Unilever. In addition to the information provided on this website and in our Annual Report, we report publicly on the status of our anti-corruption programme through our annual Communication on Progress to the UN Global Compact.

• Accurate Records, Reporting & Accounting (PDF 79.59 KB)
• Anti-Bribery (PDF 93.59 KB)
• Anti-Money Laundering and Economic Sanctions (PDF 95.37 KB)
• Avoiding Conflicts of Interest (PDF 81.92 KB)
• Gifts & Hospitality (PDF 133.67 KB)
• Protecting Unilever’s Physical & Financial Assets & Intellectual Property (PDF 93.89 KB)

Respecting people

People should be treated with dignity, honesty and fairness. Unilever and its employees celebrate the diversity of people, and respect people for who they are and what they bring. Unilever wants to foster working environments that are fair and safe, where rights are respected and everyone can achieve their full potential.

• Occupation Health & Safety (PDF 80.77 KB)
• Respect, Dignity & Fair Treatment (PDF 147.15 KB)

Safeguarding information

Information is essential to our success: it fuels our research, keeps us in touch with consumer needs and helps us work effectively together. If used inappropriately, information can cause considerable damage to our business.

• Competitors’ Information (PDF 105.64 KB)
• Personal Data & Privacy (PDF 91.08 KB)
• Preventing Insider Trading (PDF 79.5 KB)
• Protecting Unilever’s Information (PDF 100.04 KB)
• Use of Information Technology (PDF 135.31 KB)

Engaging externally

Throughout our value chain, from innovation through to our consumers, Unilever and its employees need to demonstrate the same ethical standards when engaging with others externally as when dealing with colleagues.

• Contact with Government, Regulators & Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) (PDF 147.77 KB)
• External Communications – The Media, Investors & Analysts (PDF 98.49 KB)
• Fair Competition (PDF 186.9 KB)
• Political Activities & Political Donations (PDF 109.4 KB)
• Responsible Marketing (PDF 90.8 KB)
• Responsible Sourcing & Business Partnering (PDF 98.04 KB)

We’ve translated our Code of Business Principles into the following languages.

Code of Business Principles - multiple language versions

Code Of Business Principles - Arabic (PDF 4.05 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Chinese (PDF 10.5 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Dutch (PDF 9.92 MB) Code Of Business Principles - English (PDF 5.39 MB) Code Of Business Principles - French (PDF 9.61 MB) Code Of Business Principles - German (PDF 9.74 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Hebrew (PDF 4.02 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Indonesian (PDF 8.93 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Italian (PDF 9.63 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Japanese (PDF 10.16 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Korean (PDF 2 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Portuguese (PDF 9.71 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Russian (PDF 9.98 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Spanish (PDF 9.57 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Thai (PDF 15.78 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Turkish (PDF 9.97 MB) Code Of Business Principles - Vietnamese (PDF 9.94 MB)

Other key documents

Non Retaliation Guidance (PDF 568.39 KB) Our Speak Up platforms and Investigating Code Breaches (PDF 494.51 KB) Unilever Human Rights Progress Report 2019 (PDF 3.34 MB) Unilever Human Rights Progress Report 2017 (PDF 9.45 MB) Unilever Human Rights Report Interim Update 2022 (PDF 514.63 KB)

Frequently asked questions

We are often asked how we manage and enforce our Code of Principles and Code Policies. Find out more below.

How do employees raise concerns?

We are committed to a culture of transparency and have a 100% prohibition on retaliation against those who report or seek guidance on ethical or compliance issues and/or report cases under our Code of Business Principles. See our Non-Retaliation Policy (PDF 568.39 KB) for further details. We want employees to feel confident about speaking up and third parties are likewise encouraged to contact us with any concerns. We offer a variety of internal and external reporting solutions for raising concerns in confidence, anonymously if required.

Employees can get in touch with their line manager, a Business Integrity Officer or a member of their local Business Integrity Committee. Alternatively, they can use our confidential external Unilever Code Support Line (whistleblowing line) via telephone or online.

In addition to the internal and external channels provided, where available, employees are able to utilise other external reporting channels and report directly to the authorities.

We highlight these options during Business Integrity training and in our communications. Case closure statistics are reviewed by the Global Code Policy Committee on a quarterly basis and by the Board’s Corporate Responsibility Committee at each of its meetings. We publish details of our web-based reporting process externally and share them with our external business partners.

How is business integrity governed and managed?

Our CEO sets an unequivocal tone from the top: he communicates regularly with leaders and all employees on business integrity, making clear that adherence to our Code and Code Policies is non-negotiable. Many other members of our Executive are also vocal champions: they make time to regularly share their personal perspective on business integrity with their teams, through communications and ‘integrity moments’ at the start of meetings to briefly focus on a specific topic or learning where appropriate.

At Board level, our Corporate Responsibility Committee has oversight of the implementation of the Code and Code Policies. Our Audit Committee is updated on relevant compliance developments.

In addition to the externally published Code of Business Principles breach data, we conduct extensive internal analysis of breaches to deliver insights, identify root causes and drive actions. This analysis is shared across the business with quarterly oversight and review by the Board’s Corporate Responsibility Committee, Unilever Leadership Executive, Global Code and Policy Committee and other Business Integrity Committees in line with the Governance of Unilever.

How do we assess business integrity risk and conduct due diligence?

We use a risk-based approach to implement our Business Integrity programme. We constantly seek to improve our analytics capabilities, so trends, hotspots and root causes are rapidly identified and addressed.

Each operating company periodically reviews its Business Integrity programme and profile to identify focus areas for improvement. Development needs identified through this assessment are addressed as part of local, or where appropriate, global plans. The work of local teams is available for independent review by our Corporate Audit function.

We have additional detailed controls for preventing financial accounting errors and fraud. Our financial controls are externally audited annually. Our Corporate Audit function includes the audit of Business Integrity controls in their scope of business unit audit work.

How do we ensure continuous improvement?

We aim to continuously improve how we work and to further embed a culture of business integrity. We analyse results of investigations, market assessments and audit findings to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. On a quarterly basis, we collect key case information across each geography for the purposes of creating case studies and lessons learnt.

These lessons learnt are shared extensively and form part of the Unilever Leadership Executive quarterly reporting and are subsequently used in meetings and employee engagements. The lessons learnt are shared with both country and functional leaders, Code Policy owners and across our Business Integrity network.

Our investigation processes also incorporate our commitment to learning from our code cases and include the proposal of management actions and remediations. The scope of remedial actions is broad and can range from reviews of internal controls, creation of new Standard Operating Procedures, leadership training or coaching, HR team interventions, mandatory retraining of teams across a broader geographic footprint, sharing of learnings across the global Business Integrity network, enhanced local communications to drive up awareness and integrity moments delivered by leadership focused on what went wrong.

The impact of sharing real cases helps make these incidents tangible for our workforce. The cases recorded over the course of a year are a consideration for the build of the following year’s mandatory learning. The Business Integrity team works closely with both the Corporate Audit teams and the local Internal Controls teams to ensure process gaps are closed to minimise reoccurrence risk.

On an annual basis, our employees participate in global surveys which include Business Integrity questions, with responses reviewed at both our Global Code Policies Committee (GCPC) and at the various geographic Business Integrity Committee meetings. In addition to the case analytics review, these responses enable the business to focus on potential hotspots, the overall effectiveness of the Business Integrity programme and provide insights into how strongly Business Integrity is embedded into the business. This then drives both engagement and action plans going forward.

We routinely seek input to improve the robustness and quality of the user experience in relation to our Code breach channels. We proactively engage with our platform service provider to review whistleblowing hotline scripts, expand the number of languages serviced and accelerate the speed with which we can connect users to local language interpreters and simplify the online reporting process. We engage with thought leaders and peer companies to understand and aspire to best practices.

We are a Corporate Supporter of Transparency International and a founding signatory of the United Nations Global Compact. We also contribute to various international initiatives, including with the B-Team, International Chamber of Commerce, the B20, and the WEF Partnering Against Corruption Initiative.

What is our commitment to anti-corruption?

Unilever’s zero-tolerance approach towards bribery and corruption is outlined in our Code of Business Principles and Code Policies and applies to all Unilever operations, regardless of local business practices. This extends to all our employees, Board members, third parties, new acquisitions and joint ventures, irrespective of financial values involved. It prohibits both public and commercial bribery – to or from any third party. We explicitly prohibit facilitation payments.

Our Anti-Corruption Compliance Programme ensures our zero-tolerance approach is maintained in all our internal and external interactions. The Programme utilises the ‘prevent-detect-respond’ framework (see setting out our standards of behaviour above) with some enhancements in the following areas:

• A bespoke risk assessment exercise is conducted on an annual basis to determine the business activities and geographies that require specific actions to enhance our controls and respond to changes in our risk exposure. Recent exercises have confirmed the higher risk that exist in activities like interactions with public officials, customs clearance, transportation, inventory management and third-party engagements. A range of tailor-made enhancements are continuously introduced to mitigate these risks.
• In addition to our Code of Business Principles and Code Policies, we have additional anti-corruption written standards and controls for interactions with public officials, brand protection, corporate transactions (M&A), customer incentives, gifts and hospitality, grants and donations and conflicts of interest.
• Our annual Business Integrity mandatory training is deployed to all employees and includes anti-corruption lessons based on our learnings from investigations, risk assessments and business partnering. Additional bespoke training is offered to employees that face a greater risk in their activities. 

The Programme is sponsored by the Chief Legal Officer and Business Integrity Officer and led by the Chief Counsel – Ethics & Compliance. It is overseen by our Corporate Responsibility Committee of the Board of Directors.

We support international organisations like the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in their efforts to implement their anti-corruption international conventions and best practice. We also participate actively in key anti-corruption forums like the World Economic Forum (PACI and Global Future Councils), the UN Global Compact, the International Chamber of Commerce, the B-20 and Transparency International.

We provide thought leadership and influence key policymakers on positive regulatory change that can help our consumers, Unilever and our business partners (including small and medium enterprises) to live and be able to do business in corruption free environments. We also benchmark externally, disseminate good practices and actively participate in knowledge exchange opportunities with peers.

Responding to breaches of our Code

Our market-based Business Integrity Committees oversee investigations of all potential breaches of our Code and Code Policies, except where senior executives are involved. In such cases, our Chief Legal Officer and Chief Business Integrity Officer oversee investigations and a global code policy committee determines any sanctions regardless of where such executives are located.

Each Business Integrity Committee is responsible for ensuring the timely investigation of all alleged or suspected Code breaches by an individual employee – with a view to reaching a final determination within 60 days.

Our reporting platform allows two-way communication through a secure exchange between the reporter and the Business Integrity Officer even when the reporter chooses full anonymity. On receipt of a report, we formally acknowledge and encourage engagement to facilitate the investigation and, where appropriate and possible, we aim to provide transparency with regards to the investigation progression and anticipated completion. See Our Speak up Platforms and Investigating Code Breaches (PDF 494.51 KB) for detail of the process.

In 2023, 55% of our cases were reported directly to Business Integrity Officers which reassures us that we continue to embed a strong Speak Up process with trust in our Business Integrity Officers. Overall, 43% of our 1,390 cases were anonymously reported utilising our external facing platform which provides both web reporting and hotlines with translator services.

In 2023, we received 1,390 reports from whistle-blowers. We substantiated 507 in breach of our Code Policies, which led to 337 people leaving the business. Furthermore, we initiated 6 cases of legal action and issued 567 written warnings – with 113 employees receiving a written warning and appropriate financial consequences. In total, we investigated and closed 969 Code cases during the year. A small number of cases remain ongoing. We cannot disclose details of these due to confidentiality.

* This includes breaches of all six Countering Corruption Code Policies in our Code of Business Principles and Code Policies (PDF 5.39 MB) (see pages 15-22). For certain external anti-corruption benchmarks, including the WEF IBC anti-corruption metric, we exclude cases that mainly relate to theft or breaches against Unilever assets. In such cases we report 108 cases as substantiated in 2023.

In 2023, 40% of our substantiated cases were in the Americas, 30% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and 30% in Asia.

The number of issues raised per 1,000 employees and substantiation rates benchmark well against available peer data, pointing to ongoing Unilever employee willingness to report integrity concerns. Our policy is to investigate all reported concerns, however they are raised, including minor ones. The number of confirmed Code Policy breaches reflects the high overall standards we set ourselves. We sanction individuals as appropriate, including through warnings and coaching, and share learnings that help reduce the likelihood of material breaches occurring.

Training our employees on business integrity

Everyone who works at Unilever should know our Code and Code Policies and understand how to apply them in their work.

In 2023, we launched a new edition of our ‘edutainment’ mandatory Business Integrity training which uses storytelling to engage our employees and guide them in making the right decisions in real life business integrity moments. The training targets both office-based employees, as well as those working in factories.

94% of our employees [a] who were employed under a full-time, part-time, fixed-term, permanent or trainee contract, including acquired businesses, received training on anti-corruption policies and procedures in combination with other Code Policies in 2023.

94% of employees completed training on anti-corruption policies and procedures in 2023

A specific level of training is mandatory for all employees, including corporate leaders such as our CEO and Unilever Board Members. Completion of training is tracked through our online learning platform and other tools. We follow up with employees who fail to complete mandatory training and take further action where required.

Our Business Integrity team and subject matter experts further support operational teams to develop additional materials tailored and timed to meet local needs. We seek to provide advanced guidance on specific areas covered by our Code Policies for employees in higher risk positions. We monitor and benchmark our approach to ensure continuous improvement.

We run regular globally designed and locally implemented communications campaigns to reinforce awareness and, where relevant, share lessons learnt in training.

Our Business Integrity guidelines and processes seek to ensure a consistent approach across the Unilever group. This includes clear processes for fair, unbiased, independent investigation of any integrity concerns raised. We also seek to ensure that our businesses apply individual sanctions consistently, appropriately and fairly; our guidance sets out which mitigating and aggravating circumstances may be considered. We monitor developments centrally to ensure a consistent approach.

Business integrity across our value chain

We want to work with suppliers, customers, agents, distributors and other business partners who have values similar to ours and uphold the same standards as we do.

Our Responsible Partner Policy (PDF 4.45 MB)

Our Responsible Partner Policy (RPP) brings together our supplier-facing Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP) and our distributor and customer-facing Responsible Business Partner Policy (RBPP) to create one policy that sets the standard for both our Responsible Sourcing Programme and our Responsible Business Partner Programme.

It sets out our 17 Fundamental Principles and defines the Mandatory Requirements, Mandatory Management Systems and Future Mandatory Requirements that partners must meet or exceed to do business with Unilever.

Our Responsible Partner Policy  outlines our requirements for business partners and governs our Responsible Sourcing Programme and Responsible Business Partner Programme.

We use risk assessments and due diligence to identify suppliers, business partners or other third parties that may pose a legal or reputational risk to Unilever, and to determine how best to address concerns. Where possible, our aim is to encourage them to take active steps to improve their approach to embedding a culture of integrity across their business.

Our channels for reporting concerns are also available to external parties.

Please visit reporting a concern .

Excludes employees on leave of absence, who are exempted by Business Integrity Officers or not registered on the Unilever learning system.